...if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal." JFK

Saturday, September 27, 2008

John McCain has proven, without a doubt, that he cannot act in a bipartisan manner. If McCain is elected President, he has now shown that he will not work with what is sure to be a Democrat-controlled Congress. Anyone, Republican or Democrat, that disagrees with the crotchety old man is an enemy and needs to be treated as an enemy.

The thinG about that intellectually dishonest campaign ad is that everyone knows that what Obama said was, John is absolutely right.....BUT...

Pretty boring debate I thought. Obama let McCain get away with spewing way too much "misinformation". Overall, I thought the debate was a tie. But Obama showed many strengths. First, he came across as a statesman as opposed to the angry, crotchety old man McCain yelling at you to get off his lawn.

Second, Obama came across as someone who could dispassionately work in a bipartisan manner, treating McCain with respect and agreeing with him many, many times. McCain on the other hand treated Obama with complete disdain. I don't believe he looked at him even once during the whole debate. And what is with that fake, grin McCain puts on everytime he is hit with a political point. It's almost as if he has been hypnotized to grin instead of doing what he really wants to do - which is to shout "fuck you"!!! McCain is the guy who says he can work in a bipartisan manner. Unfortunately for him, he didn't prove it last night. Obama on the other hand showed me that he can work in a bipartisan manner.

Third, McCain never, not once mentioned how he would help the middle class...something Obama did really well. Instead, McCain repeatedly told us how we need to help corporations. Don't worry, the corporations will help the middle class (trust me). McCain proved once again that he is the one that does not understand the economy. If we go into recession we need to cut government spending? I thought during recessions you wanted government spending to continue so that people had jobs and so that government could collect taxes.

Unfortunately for McCain, the earliest polls seem to give the win to Obama. I guess because Obama "held his own" on foreign policy. But I think the main reason is that cool, calm and collected Obama showed up for to debate a really angry old man (who actually came across as unstable) who spent a lot of time grimacing (his version of smiling) and explaining that Obama really doesn't understand anything (when it was pretty clear to the rest of us that Obama understood at least as much as McCain).

After the debates, VP candidate Joe Biden effectively lit into McCain on all the networks. Where was Sarah Palin supporting John McCain?

UPDATE: Damn, I forgot ask why John McCain forgot to wear his flag pin. Isn't that an example of "not ready for prime time" or lack of patriotism? Is Rep. Jack Kingston going to slam McCain for not wearing a flag pin?

Friday, September 26, 2008

The Russians have sent the missile frigate Neustrashimy off to Africa in an attempt to intercept a Ukrainian ship loaded with 33 Russian T-72 tanks that was hijacked by pirates off the coast of Africa. The tanks had been sold to Kenya.

It's surprising that someone hasn't put a stop to the piracy that has become common off the horn of Africa.

U.S. Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said the United States was worried about the ship's cargo.

"A ship carrying cargo of that nature being hijacked off the coast of Somalia is something that should concern us, and it does concern us. And we are monitoring the situation and taking a look at what the options might be," Whitman said.

Is there anything like an intellectually honest Republican left in the USA? The party of the intellectually ignorant is actually proud of their status. Why would you want someone smarter than you running the country? Naaaa, it's much better to have a guy (or woman) you'd like to have a beer with be in power. You can easily make the argument that Republicans are the party of ignorance, at least over the last 8 years. What is even more amazing, is that in a Rovian manner, the Republicans make their ignorance a selling point! Don't listen to the elites! Use common sense instead. Why not argue that you shouldn't listen to your physician, accountant, lawyer, plumber, electrician, or auto mechanic either. Just use your common sense...expertise isn't needed or wanted.

It recently made me wonder, as I've seen Republican campaign storefronts open in Saranac Lake and Lake Placid, who are these people that after almost 8 years of Republican disaster....are actually willing to support more Republicans being elected? It's like that stupic TV commercial that runs too much lately. The guy says to his psychologist, "AM I INSANE"??? His psychologist points out that Ben Franklin defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting the same result. That is what local Republicans are doing in my opinion.

So is there even one intellectually honest Republican left in the country? Every now and then Joe Scarborough will slip and show some intellectual honesty, but that is a rare event. The moderate congressional Republicans have lost their jobs. Country first Republicans? Bullshit! Remember when Republicans were honest enough that they put Howard Baker in place to clean up Ronald Reagan's Iran/Contra scandal mess? Remember when Republicans realized it was time for Richard Nixon to leave office. Those days are long gone.

Accepting Sarah Palin as their VP candidate is another perfect example. It's become more and more evident that this woman is not ready for national office. She is an embarrassment to women, the Republican party, Conservatives and to the country in general. Palin can barely string two comprehensible sentences together. No wonder they are keeping her away from the press. Yet loyal Republicans insist that Sarah Palin is the answer to all our problems.

Actually, I just remembered. Conservative Andrew Sullivan has come to his senses over the last couple of years.

Almost 2 weeks ago I predicted that the Republicans would attempt to blame the current economic crisis on the Democrats or on Barack Obama. It wasn't a hard prediction to make and, of course, it's coming true.

John McCain, the hero, "suspends" his presidential campaign and parachutes into Washington to help secure a meaningful means of preventing the economic meltdown of the US economy. How is that going? A bipartisan deal was just about set and then for some odd reason, that just happens to coincide with John McCain injecting himself into the process, the deal falls through. But that's ok, it wasn't really McCain's fault...it was, guess who, Barack Obama's fault. Barack Obama who was trying not to inject politics into the process, and who was "called back" to Washington by President Bush ends up with the blame. See, they had to have Obama in the room in order to place the blame on him.

It's becoming more and more clear that John McCain, hero that he reminds us that he is, just isn't suited to be president. He doesn't have the temperment, the leadership skills, the brains or the "nads" to be president. Let's see if the hero will show up at the presidential debate tonight. Maybe he will be too busy saving the country.

Ok, fine. Sarah Palin needed to be protected from witches when she was running for Governor. It's irrational, it's stupid, it's hilarious. But everyone will ignore it.

Now replace Sarah Palin with Barack Obama in the same situation. Obama being protected from witches by ministations of what is basically a "witch hunter" minister from Africa? Can you imagine the outrage we would be hearing from the right wing? But since it's Sarah Palin, she that must not be "dissed" or questioned....the Republicans have absolutely no problem with her being protected from witches. Well, it fits in nicely with the anti-science party.

Someone help me out here. Sarah Palin has been a candidate for Vice President for over a month now. Has she shown ANY knowledge about ANYTHING in the last 30 days? It seem Dan Quayle was a genus, in retrospect, compared with Gov. Palin. Maybe she can go on TV and show us how to gut and skin a moose. Does she really know how to do that?

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

We have a problem with CO2 emissions from coal-fired plants. The technology exists to capture the CO2 and there are proposals to pipe the captured CO2 into the Earth. But why would you want to waste perfectly good CO2? Doesn't it have a use?

Of course it does! Plants need CO2 to make carbohydrates. Plants take in CO2, convert it to carbohydrates with the help of energy from the Sun and then give off waste oxygen.

So what is a use for CO2? How about feeding it to green algae? The algae love it and reproduce like mad. Then you extract biofuel from the algae and are left with a bunch of dried green stuff. The dried green stuff can then be fermented into alchohol. Is this all a pipe dream? Nope.

John McCain has decided that the best way to win the Presidential election is to not answer any questions from the press. That goes tenfold for Sarah Palin - "the American people are vetting her".

It's been more than 40 days since McCain last held a press conference. Sarah Palin hasn't held a press conference for almost 25 days. You can keep a running check at this website. McCain has gone from being the most accessible presidential candidate to one who clearly is fearful of answer questions by members of the press.

I know even less about economics than John McCain. But here is something I will bet on. Whatever so called "plan" that our executive branch of government comes up with to save our economy...it will easily be passed in Congress. It has to be passed. Think of the economic repercussions if the Congress called into question the effectiveness of the "plan". It's unlikely there will be any new regulations to fix the "Wall St. problems" and you can be pretty sure that whatever "plan" is passed, its not going to help the average guy (you) on the street much, if at all. You can count on Democrats to enable the Republicans, the party of fiscal conservatism. Unfortunately, it will be the "average guy" that will be paying for whatever this ends up costing.

My friend Watson in the Adirondacks will not vote for Obama because Obama is a socialist. You have to chuckle a bit about that seeing as this economic bailout will be the biggest socialist program in the USA.